Question

Should all View objects be redrawn every onDraw() procedure?

I’m coming from a Flash background so my initial thought was to draw static background images on one layer/canvas and then create another layer on top of that to handle more active animations, but this doesn’t seem very practical to setup. Is my train of thought behind Android’s View.onDraw() misguided here and is this something I shouldn’t even be worrying about?

Edit: To elaborate a bit further on what I’m trying to figure out with the concept of onDraw() – Is there a way to use multiple canvases on a SurfaceView/View that will act as layers so I can manually draw on each individual canvas (to minimize what needs to be ‘redrawn’) without having to ‘redraw’ the graphics on other canvases, or is the SurfaceView/View’s onDraw() absolutely necessary for updating any visual changes (in which case everything is ‘redrawn’ to the screen)?

Answer 1

Q: Should all View objects be redrawn every onDraw() procedure?

A: No – not necessarily

ALSO: definitely take a look at SurfaceViews:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/SurfaceView.html